Convert Publisher files to PDF

What the PDF keeps

Each page of the publication becomes a PDF page of the same size, whether it was A4, Letter, a folded card or a poster. Text stays text: you can search it, select it and copy it, and it prints sharp at any size because it is not a picture of text. The fonts are embedded in the file, so it looks the same on a computer that has none of them installed.

Publisher documents mostly use Microsoft fonts, which a converter cannot ship, so they are replaced with open fonts. For Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, Cambria, Georgia, Arial Narrow, Segoe UI, Palatino, Bookman and Century Schoolbook the stand-in has exactly the same letter widths, and every line breaks where it did in Publisher. Other fonts get the closest open design, and a line can end a word earlier or later. The report lists every replacement, file by file.

Printing it

Print at 100% or "Actual size", not "Fit to page". Fitting shrinks the page a little, which does not matter for a letter and ruins a sheet of labels or business cards that has to line up with pre-cut stock. Pages come out in the order they have in the publication, so a folded booklet is in reading order; your printer's booklet setting takes care of the folding order.

The PDF is RGB, like one saved from Word. Home and office printers print it as it is. A commercial print shop that asks for CMYK or PDF/X will convert it in its own prepress step: no LibreOffice-based conversion produces a press-ready CMYK file.

Many files, one PDF

Drop a folder, several folders or a ZIP of folders and every .pub inside is converted, with the same folders in the download. Switch on the combined PDF to get, next to the separate files, one PDF that holds all of them in a row: the easy way to send a year of newsletters or a set of certificates as a single attachment.

How to do it

1. 1Drop .pub files, a folder or a ZIP below. PDF is already selected.
2. 2Look at the free preview: page 1 of up to 20 files, before anything is paid.
3. 3Convert. Switch on the combined PDF first if you also want everything in one file.
4. 4Download the ZIP and open the report: it lists pages, fonts used and fonts replaced for every file.

Known pitfalls

• Linked text boxes: a story that flows through several boxes (newsletter columns, "continued on page 2") can appear in full in every box. The report flags each file where this happens, so check those before you send them on.
• Fonts outside the list of same-width twins can make a line one word longer or shorter, and a tightly filled text box may lose its last line. The report names the font.
• Links: a web address typed into the text is in the PDF as text. A link hidden behind other words may not be clickable; open one PDF and test it before you send a batch.
• Old Publisher 97 and 98 files store text in the code page of the Windows that saved them. Turkish, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Central European text is decoded correctly instead of turning into strings of wrong accented letters.

Questions